MAC address filtering allows you to define a list of devices and only allow those devices on your Wi-Fi network. That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, this protection is tedious to set up and easy to breach.

This is one of the Wi-Fi router features that will give you a false sense of security. Just using WPA2 encryption is enough. Some people like using MAC address filtering, but it’s not a security feature. Read more >>

We’ve been touting the benefits of third-party DNS servers for a while now, but one additional benefit that might be of interest is the ability to encrypt all of your DNS requests, further protecting you from anybody spying on you in the middle.

DNSCrypt, from the great team at OpenDNS, is the simple solution that we’ll use to add encryption between your computer and the DNS server. It’s a lightweight solution that works on either Windows or Mac — sadly no mobile support so far. Read more >>

On our Comcast Xfinity router, WPA2-PSK (TKIP), WPA2-PSK (AES), and WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) are all different options. Choose the wrong option and you’ll have a slower, less-secure network.

The last option — both TKIP and AES — was the default on our router. That’s actually a bad choice, but just understanding the options requires some knowledge of Wi-Fi encryption standards. Read more >>

Ever since the first person wrote out 5318008 on a calculator, nerds have been hiding secret numbers inside of your PC, and using them to negotiate secret handshakes between applications and files. Today we take a quick look at some of the more entertaining examples. Read more >>

When it comes to securing your Wi-Fi network, we always recommend WPA2-PSK encryption. It’s the only really effective way to restrict access to your home Wi-Fi network. But WPA2 encryption can be cracked, too — here’s how.

As usual, this isn’t a guide to cracking someone’s WPA2 encryption. It’s an explanation of how your encryption could be cracked and what you can do to better protect yourself. Read more >>